Looking outside today, I began to wonder where this year has gone. It seemed like only yesterday when we were rolling Mary Jane out of our garage and preparing her for the first trip of spring. Our adrenaline was rushing at the thought of the first trip of the year with the windows down, I pod cranking and the fresh spring air whisping through the cabin of our beloved Westy.
     Now, as the first week of October draws to a close, so has the side window vents on Mary Jane. The festival T-shirts are now layered underneath festival sweatshirts. The green grasses and green trees of spring have become the golden fields and umber shades that decorate our landscape against the blue horizon.
     Still as we move through the seasons in Michigan we are far from done in the outdoors, and instead are just gearing up for the adventures that a new season offers. Watching as the autumn colors cascaded their reds and yellows through the tree line, I thought of what adventures come next for Michiganders. We have spent our summer entertained at festivals, camping and floating the rivers. Now the wilderness that we hiked will become the wooded areas that we hunt; the water which we basked in will become the frozen ice through which we fish. 
I thought to myself, “where else but Michigan offers such diversity, where else can one have so many opportunities to enjoy nature?” First will be the fall hunt.  
     As game seasons open throughout the state we will have the opportunity to harvest the natural resources of which we have been stewards. Today, it seems we are always searching for resources in an alternative fashion to supply our needs, without becoming dependent gluttons excessively straining our ability to supply the world’s demands. We use the wind and sunlight to create energy as opposed to using fossil fuels. Plastics and papers are recycled now. Recycling offers an alternative to clear-cutting the forests only to use those materials for tissue paper, newspaper and storage containers.
     We monitor herbicide and pesticide usages to prevent polluting our woodlands and waterways along with the wildlife found in them.  We choose to eat a diet of “natural” or “organically” grown meats and vegetables to improve our health and leave behind the world of processed foods and saturated fats riddled with unhealthy preservatives. We have learned from our past mistakes.
     As we make these monumental gains in improving our environment for the next generation, there is a group or consortium of people known as outdoorsmen that embrace the opportunity to harvest our natural resources. Through the means of proper herd management this group of individuals known as hunters enjoys with satisfaction the healthy alternative to processed foods that our wild natural resources provides. From the whitetail deer to the ring neck pheasant, the cotton tail rabbit to the wild turkey, our state is amply supplied with food resources offering a healthy natural alternative to modern day food supplies inundated with growth hormones, steroids, or vitamin supplements that lead to the destruction or over development of the human body.
     Our state offers all this, and uniquely enough, does so without requiring us to be land owners with ten, twenty or thirty acres on which to hunt.  With our vast supply of acreage available in our national forests, our state game lands and public access areas, anyone can take the opportunity to set their table with the natural cuisine that is at within our reach.
     Through good management practices and conservation policies we can enjoy these delicacies along with the wild berries, mushrooms and fruits of summer. We can feel a sense of accomplishment that we have not wasted any of our natural resources, but instead used them as healthy alternative nourishment unpolluted by science or production demands. 
     This time of year also reminds me of a way of life, a way that has been passed down for generations in my family.  A way that has taught us to live off the land and know through times of great prosperity or in times of hardship that we have the ability to survive and sustain ourselves.  This is the time of year that I love to sit alone in the stillness of the forest or on the bank of a river and remember my grandfather and my father and their love of the outdoors.
     My grandfather was a man who was an environmentalist and conservationist long before it was ever thought of by the general population as trendy or hip.  I know my grandfather only in the black and white photos of him that I’ve reflected over throughout my life.  Most of the images of him that I’ve seen were captured in the place he preferred to be… the great outdoors.  He spent his life as a farmer and carpenter but primarily he spent just short of a century as a Michigan outdoorsman.
     In 1938, he harvested his first white tail deer.  It was a 9 point taken in Mio, Michigan when the only way to travel was on the back roads because there was no interstate highway system. On his trip up north, he traveled in his 1923 Ford Model T with My father, uncle and his “new” Winchester Lever action 30/30. I’ve heard my father tell the story countless times, “it was your grandfather’s first deer,” he would tell me. “He had never got a shot at one down here (Lapeer County).” 
     For most of his life, grandfather had taken only small game species such as pheasant, rabbits and squirrels and an occasional muskrat during the depression when our family, like most, lived primarily off the land. During the depression my grandfather would leave on Thursday afternoons when chores where done and head to Lexington or Port Hope, Michigan to fish all night, returning Friday morning with an ample supply of fresh fish to trade with neighbors in the area. He would exchange the fresh catch for chicken, pork or beef for the family table.
He was known throughout the area even in his later years as a trapper with skills that enabled him to remove unwanted species from the farms and neighboring areas without harm to the animals- a pioneer in “live trapping” if you will. 
     Still today, thirty some years after his passing, the stories of a great catch, successful hunt or the technics that he used are retold time and again during our hunt camp poker games.  In fact, in our small primitive cabin lit only by the means of century-old oil lamps, images of our outdoor heritage line the walls. The words I’ve heard spoken all of my life are captured in the scenes they depict, or the connection with the outdoors they represent.
     Now, with the long days of summer replaced with a harvest moon, the natural call of the wild beckons me and the instinctive nature for survival begins to rumble deep within my Michigander soul in one way or another.  Whether you are the outdoorsman taking in the traditions of the past or a survivalist who uses the natural resources for provisions, it is a time to reflect and be thankful to God for our ability to respectfully harvest His natural resources. 
     Admittedly, I am thankful that the annual reconnection with the hunt is somewhat ceremonial.  Indeed, I find myself embracing more and more the opportunity to gather with friends, share stories and teach the next generation a bit about their ancestry and the love of the outdoors.  From my tree stand, more often than not, I now take more photographs of the wildlife that I once hunted.  I do on occasion practice the old world traditions that I have retained and prosper and survive off our natural resources. In other words, I still hunt occasionly.
     When I am out in my stand this year, either with the camera or the gun, I will be thinking back on these words that I have written.  I will be thinking about grandfather, my dad and my friends and family that I have shared this season with for so many years now. I’m sure I will pause for a moment and wonder if grandfather would have presented the hunting season any differently…probably not. He would only read it and repeat the words that resonate through our camp still to this day, “take no more than you need, leave no more than proper, and be thankful you found your way outdoors.”

From behind the wheel,

Big Josh